Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)

I am glad to get time to raise this very important matter, the spread of tuberculosis and the TB eradication scheme, which is clearly not working. We have more outbreaks of TB now after 46 or 47 years of testing. There are so many farmers going down in east Kerry, mid-Kerry and south Kerry. Even in Kilgarvan, many farmers have gone down, including our neighbour, Mikey Joe Murphy, who is very local to us and does everything right. He has never bought in any cows or animals and gives and does all he can to maintain and improve his herd. If I look out at 7.30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, his cows are leaving the parlour, milked. Half an hour later, we can see him topping or spreading fertiliser, even on a Sunday. He goes at it around the clock. He had an outbreak of tuberculosis last Friday week and 26 of his 66 cows have gone down. That is very hard for any farmer, especially somebody like Mikey Joe, who farms full time and whose farm income is his primary income to provide for his wife and family. He tells me that the compensation he will get is in no way adequate for the type of cows he had. An independent valuer stated they were worth in excess of €4,500. He seems to think he will only get €3,150. The Department should know by now that the cost of cattle has risen sharply in the past 12 months, meaning replacing the animals will cost much more.

We heard the Minister, Deputy Heydon, say he had secured extra funding, but what is it for? Is it to curb the primary cause? I do not think so. It seems to be for the secondary issue of more testing and disposal reactors. The number of reactors has been going up steadily since 2018 when there were 7,500. That figure is now up to 41,630. Is is it true that no culling of badgers has taken place in the past two years and they have only been vaccinated? What good is vaccinating a badger that has TB?

For many years, the Department has denied the fact that deer and badgers are the primary reason for the spread of the disease, as they move unrestricted from farm to farm. Badgers and deer are travelling wherever they want, when they want. I know of one farmer, and I will not tell the Minister of State where or who he is, but he never went down and he was in the middle of four or five farmers who were constantly going down. They would go down and be clear for a few years and then they would go down again. In one year alone, this small farmer snared 103 badgers. He never went down. These were big, small and baby badgers. He culled 103 in one year alone. I ask the Minister of State and Department to dramatically increase the culling of deer and badgers.

The national parks and forests are harbouring the deer in a big way. The farmers cannot follow them into those places. If we have sheep, we must have something to keep them in because a cattle fence will not do. I ask that these entities fence their places off, so at least deer cannot come out of them into neighbouring farms spreading the disease.

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